Inquest on Apollo

The President, the Vice President, and America's First Lady were at the gravesides, and millions watched on television as the Apollo astronauts were laid to rest last week: Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee at Arlington, and Edward White at West Point. Of all those who paid tribute to the three who died earthbound on a launch pad at Cape Kennedy, no one put the meaning of their deaths into clearer perspective than the Rev. Conrad Winborn, pastor of Ed White's home church in Seabrook, Texas. "Let us not expect to sing the victor's song," said he, "unless we are willing to risk the harsh notes of tragic loss and personal sacrifice."

To most Americans, the muffled drums and the somber eulogies were the only form of tribute left to offer Grissom, White and Chaffee. But to the stunned technicians of the Apollo program, there could be no more fitting service to the astronauts--the quick and the dead--than an exhaustive in quest on the burned-out spacecraft. To that end, a board of inquiry, headed by Floyd L. Thompson, director of NASA's Langley Research Center near Hampton, Va., embarked on an excruciatingly intricate search to discover the cause of the fatal blast.

Macabre Harvest. Experts minutely dissected the charred cockpit, sorting out and studying countless blobs of melted wiring, poring over the soot-coated, grey-scorched dials, tubes and toggle switches of the instrument panel. The outer surface of the capsule was blistered and blackened in places, evidence that the blaze somehow erupted through the light skin of the airtight craft. The board ordered another, partially completed Apollo spacecraft flown to Cape Kennedy from North American Aviation's plant in Downey, Calif., so that investigators could compare its components with the blackened debris scattered about the ruined craft.

From the moment of the fire, officials clamped a hermetic lid on the investigation. The inevitable result was a macabre harvest of reportorial speculation about the astronauts' last seconds. Quoting an unidentified "official source," the New York Times said that the three had suffered horribly as the fire spread: that they shrieked repeatedly, pleading for help; that they died scrabbling frantically at the sealed hatch cover of the capsule, leaving shreds of flesh on the metal; and that their bodies were incinerated until little more than bones remained.

Sudden Jump. At week's end National Aeronautics and Space Administration Deputy Administrator Robert D. Seamans Jr. told reporters that a second-by-second analysis of tape recordings made during the test indicated that at 6:31:03 p.m. Roger Chaffee first shouted a warning about the fire, that there were faint signs of movement, and that at 6:31:09 Ed White, too, reported the cockpit blaze. Other NASA control center instruments recorded the fact that the cabin pressure (held at a level of 16 lbs. per sq. in.) began to increase, and that three seconds after White's warning, Chaffee cried out again about the fire and there was more evidence of the men's moving about.

"Some listeners," said Seamans, "believe there was one sharp cry of pain." Then radio communications went dead, and at 6:31:17--just 14 seconds after the first alarm--the cockpit pressure soared to 29 lbs. per sq. in. and the capsule ruptured. The astronauts suffered relatively minor burns; all three men were buried wearing full-dress uniforms complete with tiers of chest medals. The official cause of death for all three was listed as asphyxiation from smoke inhalation.

Prime Point. As to speculation about the fire's cause, it was reported that four days before the test, there was an apparent short circuit in the ship's system. And moments before the fire burst out in the cockpit, the telemetry readings in Houston reportedly showed a sudden jump in battery temperatures. The obvious possibility was that the spacecraft's circuits may have been overloaded, triggering a spark somewhere and maybe even setting fire to the supposedly heat-resistant wire insulation. But Seamans said that "up to this time," it did not seem that the power source, "whether simulated internal or external, was related to the accident."

One prime point of suspicion for the origin of the flames was still the environmental control system (ECS), which furnishes a pure-oxygen atmosphere to the cabin interior and which has a potentially volatile coolant running through its pipes. Experts were arguing anew the pros and cons of a more stable, two-gas atmosphere in the capsules (see box).

The long-range effect of the Apollo tragedy on the moonshot program is as uncertain as the precise outcome of the inquiry. If the experts find some basic design deficiency in the capsule, a year or more may pass before a shot is attempted. For the moment, that seemed unlikely. The most plausible theory is that a combination of improper procedures and some specific equipment malfunctions caused the fire. Whatever the outcome, an Apollo flight will almost certainly be delayed for six months. Meanwhile, as engineers probed the wreckage of Apollo 204, technicians on the sterilized assembly line at North American Aviation's Downey plant worked overtime to put the finishing touches on the spacecraft that will eventually become Apollo 205.

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